Sanji, I'm starving!
by callosum
Summary: Luffy bugs Sanji once too often about food. Sanji snaps. Later, when Luffy gets lost, he comes to regret it... An unanon from the One Piece fanforall. Sanji/Luffy, gen, one-shot, set prior to Enies Lobby.


**Title: **Sanji, I'm starving!  
**Characters: **Sanji, Luffy, rest of the pre-Enies Lobby crew**  
Rating: **K+**  
Words: **2350  
**Summary: **An unanon from the One Piece fanforall for a prompt that asked for Sanji snapping in reaction to someone saying they're starving.  
**Acknowledgments: **Thanks to the original prompter for inspiring the fic!

* * *

Luffy is, in a word, annoying.

Sanji knows he shouldn't be thinking this. The kid's his captain, stronger than he looks, and he's saved Sanji's life, and the lives of those he cares about, over and over. Luffy has the biggest heart of anyone Sanji's ever met.

He also has the biggest stomach of anyone Sanji's ever met. Therein lies the problem.

"Sanji, FOOD!"

It's the sixth time in the past two hours that Luffy's come gambolling into the galley on a hunt for anything edible, and Sanji decides the supplies have taken enough of a battering for one afternoon. "Out!" he orders, opening the door, but Luffy stays put, frowning.

"You've been really stingy lately, Sanji."

Sanji takes a deep breath and counts from ten to zero before he loses his temper. Then he explains with as much patience as he can muster that everyone else needs to eat too, and that the food needs to be rationed over how ever many days of sailing they have until they can take on more supplies.

"But you're supposed to eat while there's food, Sanji, you never know when you'll be stranded somewhere with nothing to eat," Luffy says earnestly, with the air of someone parroting received wisdom.

"Says who?" Sanji asks wearily.

"Says Grandpa."

Of course. The man whose idea of bringing up a child involved flinging him into the jungle alone. Whose idea of keeping a secret was to blurt it out before a company of Marines and pirates and then ask them to forget what he'd just said. _That_ grandpa.

So that's where Luffy gets it from. He eats what he wants, when he wants, and Sanji lets him. He and Sanji are polar opposites, when Sanji thinks about it. He would deny himself the pleasures of a full stomach now for the certainty of a meal later without a second thought. Hell, he denied himself his dreams for years for nothing more than a feeling of obligation to the man who had sacrificed a leg for the life of a brat he hardly even knew. But Luffy's different. He's always living in the moment, living for himself.

"Well, when it comes to the kitchen, _my_ shitty geezer wins out over _your_ grandpa, and one of the first things the shitty geezer ever told me was to ration food properly. Now, out."

But Luffy stays stubbornly put, even when Sanji tries to push him out the open door, and Sanji calls out despairingly, "A little help here, please?"

Unfortunately for Sanji, the nearest crewmember is Zoro, so what help he receives is worse than nothing. He doesn't even bother to come into the galley, instead saying lazily from his napping spot on deck, "Just give him a snack and be done with it, curly-cook. That's your job, isn't it?"

"Shut up, marimo idiot!" Sanji seethes, and returns to his captain-sized problem.

He's always peeved when the rest of the crew doesn't back him up on this, when they don't even show the slightest annoyance at Luffy's stupendous appetite. Usopp and Chopper are Luffy's accomplices, and Robin-chan hasn't been on the crew long enough to get involved in their food disputes. Nami-san might shake her head, but she won't actually get involved until the supplies are running dangerously low. And Zoro - _Zoro_, of all people, should feel the way Sanji does. If there's anything the marimo's an expert on, it's self-denial. And yet he doesn't enforce it on anyone else, and he positively _indulges_ Luffy sometimes. The whole crew indulges Luffy. It's just not fair.

Sanji gives Luffy a harder shove towards the door, and Luffy tries again. "But, Sanji, I'm starving!"

That one word does it. Sanji's last shred of patience gives way with a loud snap.

"You are _not_ starving, you shitty rubber!"

Luffy's eyes widen at Sanji's sudden transformation, at the bitter vehemence of Sanji's voice.

"I fed you less than half an hour ago! You don't count as starving until you haven't eaten in _weeks_!"

Luffy's eyes darken a little at this, and his startled look coalesces into something more thoughtful.

"I do my job as cook. When you're hungry, you'll be fed. If you don't think I'm doing a good job, go ahead and sack me!"

Luffy looks stricken at the accusation, and Sanji feels a twinge of regret at putting words that he knows Luffy would never say into his mouth. But he still has one last thing to say, and his voice lowers to a mutter as he says it.

"And don't you _dare_ say that again until you actually know what it means to starve."

Everyone looks up as Luffy collides heavily with the centre mast, the impact strong enough to make the ship shudder, hard enough for Luffy to utter a soft "ow".

"Oi, bastard, what the hell are you..." Zoro's already halfway to his feet, hand on the hilts of his katana.

But a hand blocks his way, and Luffy says, "It's all right, Zoro." He picks himself up, dusts off Hat, looks back at the galley with a sudden seriousness. "Okay, Sanji," he says, even more quietly.

The words have the air of a promise, and a tiny thrill of victory shoots through Sanji. But it's submerged even more quickly under a sudden feeling of unease.

He tells himself that it means nothing, except that his food supplies will stay comfortably intact for as long as it takes for Luffy to forget what he said.

He turns his back on his captain and strides back into the galley.

**

* * *

**Luffy was annoying.

Luffy had been annoying.

If only Luffy would be annoying again, it would make Sanji happier than anything in the world.

He's been keeping his promise, but mostly because he hasn't had a chance to invade the galley and annoy Sanji for weeks.

Instead, Luffy's stuck on some tiny rock in the middle of the Grand Line, that for some mysterious reason looked really fascinating and exploration-worthy, while the rest of the crew is here, god knows how many kilometres away in open ocean, swept away by some freak wave that Nami-san is originally very upset not to have predicted, until they find out that it was caused by some random sea-monkeys horsing around.

The sea-monkeys are duly punished for their indiscretion, but that doesn't bring them any closer to re-locating their captain. Two weeks of searching have been entirely fruitless, and the whole crew is acutely feeling the absence of Luffy. A grim, agonising silence has fallen over the ship. The concept of playtime ceases to exist. Sanji is mortified when one of his meals falls flat - he wasn't paying enough attention - but no one says anything. Maybe they figure that they don't deserve good meals while their captain's out in the middle of the ocean, starving to death.

The only thing keeping the crew intact is Zoro's steady insistence that Luffy will be fine. "He's the man who's going to be the Pirate King," he reminds them sternly, whenever Usopp or Chopper dare to voice their worst fears. "We'll find him."

But even as Usopp and Chopper trot away, heartened, to resume their preparations for Luffy's return, Sanji is sure that he can feel Zoro's glare boring into his back. The marimo thinks it's his fault, he's sure. Everyone does.

If _only_ he'd let Luffy have that pirate bento before going to explore that rock. If _only_ he'd listened to Grandpa Garp. If _only_ he hadn't ducked at the last moment when Luffy tried to catapult him over to the island to take a look.

He doesn't even know why he ducked. Maybe it was just the memory of another accursed rock a long time ago and far away. But it means that there's a Devil's Fruit user stranded on a rock in the middle of the ocean, unable to swim to a larger land mass or fish for food.

If _only_ he hadn't quarrelled with Luffy. Somehow he knows that what he said triggered this whole disaster. He basically told Luffy to go and starve. And now it's come true.

Wracked with guilt, he tries to have it out with Zoro, desperate with someone to just say aloud what he knows everyone thinks but is too kind to say, but Zoro just eyes him like he's an idiot, refuses to blame him for this whole shitty mess, and worse still, refuses to fight.

They haven't fought once since they lost Luffy. Sanji doesn't even have that one outlet.

The only way he knows how to be useful is to keep on plying Nami-san and Robin-chan with refreshments as they plot Merry's path back to its captain. It's painstaking work, without a Pose to show the way. They set up a criss-cross search pattern that requires all their attention and skill to maintain. Sustaining them in their work is the least Sanji can do, and he's acutely aware that it's a very, very tiny amount.

Finally one day Nami-san stares into the sky and declares that they're nearby, presumably recognising some local weather phenomenon. The whole crew takes up stations, scanning the horizon for a glimpse of Luffy.

It's a sight Sanji almost dreads, as he imagines what they'll find. It's been only two weeks, but Luffy's metabolism is so ridiculously fast, it might as well have been months. And after months of starvation, Sanji knows what awaits them on the island.

Luffy, rubber skin stretched taut over protruding bones, a skeleton of what he once was.

Luffy, minus a leg, deciding he can never be a pirate again.

Luffy, eyes dark and mistrusting, stealing scraps of food, jealously hoarding his treasures away.

Sanji wants, desperately wants, none of the above, but tells himself it's too much to hope for, just as Usopp shouts that he sees something in the distance.

They alter their course to where Usopp points, and find a sea king floating in the water. Dead or sleeping, they can't tell. Zoro ensures it's the former by slicing them a path through its body, and that's when they see it. Curled up within the embrace of the sea king is the little rock.

"He can't have been _eaten_, can he?" someone asks in horror, and Sanji's heart lurches.

"No, wait! I see something on the island!" Usopp says, focusing his goggles for a closer look.

This is it, then. The moment of truth.

The speck moves, and everyone heaves a sigh of relief.

The distant little figure gets to its feet, and begins waving its hands, and there's general rejoicing.

"Oi, you guys! You came!" Luffy's voice, cheerful as ever, reaches them now, and as they approach, they see his bulging stomach, and the bits of sea king that have been stripped free of its flesh and turned into sashimi. Usopp and Chopper are bouncing up and down, Nami-san's wondering aloud why they ever bothered to even worry about him, and Robin-chan's smile reaches all the way to her eyes for the first time since meeting Aokiji. And Zoro just crosses his arms and grins quietly to himself.

Sanji's not smiling. Or maybe he is. He might be crying, but he hopes he isn't. There are so many emotions battling inside him he doesn't know what to feel.

It's not enough, he decides. It's wonderful that Luffy's alive. Beyond miraculous that he's not starving. But he needs to know that he's been forgiven.

They anchor the ship as close as they can to the rock and the non-Devil's Fruit users wade over, Chopper perched on Zoro's shoulders. The reunion is a joyous one, but Luffy, being Luffy, acts like he had expected it all along, never once entertaining the possibility that he may have been lost on a rock in the middle of nowhere, alone forever.

Because he's going to be the Pirate King, and you can't become Pirate King if you're marooned on a desert island.

Sanji lets the others monopolise Luffy for a while. Luffy chatters to them about the bugs he discovered under a rock on the island, how they became food when he got peckish, how he tied his stomach up into a knot when he got really hungry, which was when the sea king showed up, how he defeated it with a Gomu-Gomu no Gatling...Sanji listens almost distantly to Luffy's words, and the others' laughter, the news that they're standing atop what may very well be some gigantic insect colony barely even registering.

And then the prattling suddenly stops and he blinks as his captain's face appears right in front of him, wide, innocent eyes staring searchingly into his soul. His first instinct is to turn away, but something - honesty, pride, apology - compels him to return the look. "Sanji," Luffy says seriously, and his heart skips a beat. Then two rubbery arms snake around him in a very solid, non-skeletal embrace, Luffy's lips crook into a grin and his voice rings in Sanji's ear: "Sanji, I want MEAT!"

And in that instant, all is once again right with Sanji's world.

**

* * *

**Luffy isn't annoying anymore, or at least he hasn't been for the last four weeks. Possibly because Sanji's been stuffing Luffy full of food ever since the incident with the desert island, to the point where Luffy actually whines that he's sick of sea king meat and please can he have something else.

Then one afternoon the door swings open while Sanji's working on dinner, and Luffy announces, "Sanji! I'm starving!"

Sanji stiffens a little, and swings around to fix his captain with a sharp look. He's met with a fake-innocent gaze, but there's an unmistakably cheeky glint in Luffy's eyes, the look of a mischievous child testing the limits of a parent's patience.

They hold the stare for a few seconds, all manner of responses running through Sanji's head. Finally he sighs and turns to the fridge. "What d'you feel like having, Luffy?" he asks, even though he already knows the answer.

The Pirate King always wins in the end.

* * *

**A/N:** Comments of any kind, including concrit, are very welcome. Thank you for reading.


End file.
